People
use the term “muscle memory” a lot in the context of sports and athletic
participation. But what is it all about, exactly? Wikipedia.com describes
this phenomenon as a product of motor or procedural learning in which specific
muscles or muscle groups learn and remember how to do a particular movement
after repeating that motion many times over a period of time. It is even
possible to improve how you execute this motion as it becomes more automatic in
your behavioral repertoire of sports or other movements, such as dancing or
playing the guitar.
While
I do not discount the existence of muscle memory, I would contend that it is
born not just in a specific part of the body that you use for the desired
behavior (e.g., body, arms or legs). Rather, I would argue that muscle memory
starts where every other memory begins: in the mind—specifically, in the
subconscious mind. The SCM triggers every action we make by sending an
electrical impulse through the nervous system to activate the muscle(s) we need
to carry out the intended or even unintended or undesired behavior. According
to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, our
only natural or innate responses are the reaction to a fear of falling and the
reaction to a fear of loud noises. As the subconscious mind takes in more and
more new information, we learn new behaviors and develop personal beliefs. Eventually,
we don’t even don’t even think about what we need to do to achieve a desired
result, we just do it. Most of us have
not thought about what our body must do in order to just walk since we took our
first steps as a toddler. Who hasn’t heard the expression, “Once you ride a
bike, you never forget how”?
In
fact, I use the idea and theory behind muscle memory in almost all of the
hypnotic suggestions I craft for my clients. I create suggestions to reinforce
the person’s motivations to change the undesired habit or adopt a desired
behavior; then, I reinforce this motivation with guided imagery in which the
individual is achieving the desired goal. The subconscious mind does not know
the difference between you swinging a golf club on the links versus imagining or pretending that you just made the perfect swing an achieved a
hole-in-one while you are in hypnosis. Furthermore, the more times you repeat
these desired behaviors in hypnosis or in a guided-imagery exercise, the more
opportunities you have to lock those actions into your subconscious mind and in
your muscle memory. It just takes repetition of the desired behavior—so I guide
my clients through these exercises over and over to reinforce the behavior
change during the hypnotherapy session and send them home with a track from the
session to further reinforce this work. Hypnosis and guided-imagery techniques
enable you to replace unwanted behaviors and adopt the ones you want using a
process of repetition and memory similar to the way the muscles in your body
learned and remember how to walk.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified
hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors
from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information
about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2014
